Now, wait a minute. Karisma Records, some strange building, haphazardly cast into nature. We had that before, right? Correct. It was Ljungblut, that guy telling us about a cabin in the Norwegian mountains. So, that’s why the album cover fascinated us right away.
Now, the core of Liminal Sky consists of two members only, Jaime Gomez Arellano, a known producer and musician, and Daniel Knight (Messenger), both based in the UK. Arellano flickered by a few times on this zine, the last incident being the late Cnoc An Tursa record for mastering. So, why doesn’t the album boast that British vibe? The promo dude even wrote that you’d feel the “…bleak stillness of the English countryside…” in yer bones. Or something. Well, it’s because the cover is based on a photo of a lonely house in the Swedish countryside.
And that makes sense. All Tomorrow’s Darkness eerily feeds on the (in)famous Scandinavian melancholy. And – paradoxically – it indeed seems to crudely paint the grim, wind-swept, and desolate moods of the UK Island in sandy, smudgy colors at the same time. Case in point, Liminal Sky‘s somewhat frugal brand of Progressive Rock almost immediately brought me back to the almost avant-gardist musings of earlier Dawnwalker. Alternative reflections that roll in on a poignant and delicate yet subdued avalanche of gothically tainted melancholy. An amalgamation of motifs that delicately weave their weary ways along unexplored pathways lost deep in the songwriter’s mind.
In fact, the most interesting quirk of All Tomorrow’s Darkness is that it is driven not by a band with a fixed number of members, but by a collective. True, Mat McNerney (Hexvessel)1 interprets most tracks. But you also find Karin Park (Årabrot) with her weird English intonation, and – last, but not least – Ulver’s Kristoffer Rygg on the mic. That said, most of the musicians added to the fray somehow seem to come from that very same band. This morphs Liminal Sky into a Ulver 2.0 kind of thing, which again explains this Northern taste ‘n’ feel that permeates the record.
The RMR crew truly loved the ambient charm you find throughout All Tomorrow’s Darkness. Painful thoughts in limbo that somehow manifest themselves like musings from the afterworld. The anguish never erupts into brutality. Instead, some of the songs feel like some sort of controlled explosion. Liminal Sky often works with post metal acoustic guitar leads that sound like some unplugged version of what Opeth might do on one of their feistier pieces. The Way of Heaven even went where Need never thought to take their quieter, kind of non-metallic pieces. But the RMR crew really got a kick out of the band’s ability to kick up a stir with some true doom. Need an example? Head over to Penance, the track featuring Karin Park. This sounds like an amalgamation that drifted straight out of Draconian territory without the growls.
But finally, All Tomorrow’s Darkness turned into a picture-perfect example that prog doesn’t need to be loud to be juicy. Moody and somberly serious discussions of guitars, weighted vocals, and sometimes the pensive saxophone or the haunted piano are enough to pass the message. That said, the record can come across as a bit mushy with a certain lack of focus at times. But by and large, this is pretty small potatoes.
ATsD is full of moods, flavors, and some sort of – how shall we call that – controlled, slow-motion crescendos that will keep you in their sucker-infested grip. And the record doesn’t let up until the tastily powerful, yet majestically slow-motion title track finally hits you. That one’s prog rock at its very best. But be warned, hasty listening won’t get you easy results. Instead, multiple listening sessions in a quiet session will be in order to let you discover the multitude of little gems hidden in a sea of salty grey melancholy.
Record Rating: 7/10 | Label: Karisma Records | Web: Official Band Site
Release Date: 19 June 2026
- He also lent his vocals to something called Gangrenator. Eww. Thought you needed to know. -Ed.-↩